We get these questions all of the time: How do I get my prize? How long will it take to get my prize? Why didn’t they send me an email confirming my win? How do I contact the promotion administrator or sponsor?

Here are some answers to those questions:

Most promotional companies will automatically ship your prize within 8-10 weeks from the end date of the promotion. Look to see when the promotion ends and add 8-10 weeks to that date; this is the timeframe you’re dealing with for prize fulfillment. Some companies will send out prizes immediately, even within days of your winning, but most companies will take weeks to ship prizes. Patience is necessary when it comes to prize fulfillment. You can use the search box (upper right corner) on our blog to look up any games (new or old) and leave a comment asking if anyone else has received their prize yet for that game. We have thousands of daily visitors, so it’s likely we’ve had other winners and someone will likely respond to your query.

As for emails, promotional companies do not always send emails to instant winners, even when the winning screen tells you that they will send an email. Just because you didn’t receive an email, doesn’t mean you didn’t win. Look up the game on our blog and see if anyone else has received a winning email or leave a comment asking if anyone else received an email. To be sure, always check your spam/junk email folders when you are anticipating a winning email. Some companies will require you to reply confirming your mailing information or attach an affidavit to the email that you must fill out, notarize and return promptly; else you forfeit your prize, so always read those winning emails thoroughly when they are sent to you. In some rarer cases, games malfunction and you may receive a winning email even though the screen told you otherwise. Often, this actually means that you did win, but the game malfunctioned and gave you a losing screen instead of the winning screen. When in doubt, use the contact information in the Official Rules to contact the administrator and if there isn’t an administrator (or the sponsor is acting as the administrator), then contact the sponsor using the information contained in the Official Rules. If that contact information is insufficient or after being patient, you’ve received no response, you may attempt to contact the administrator or sponsor through social media.

In some cases, (particularly, if you’ve not been abiding by the entrant limitations listed in the official rules), you may never receive the prize or a response from the promotional company. Promotional companies typically do not inform entrants of disqualifications – they simply discard the information and draw a different winner from the pool of eligible (qualified) entrants. If you play by the rules, you may receive instant win game prizes in the mail occasionally that you had no idea you won. It usually means someone was disqualified and you were drawn as a replacement instant win game winner.

Lastly, sponsors often only hear from people who are having trouble receiving prizes. Once you receive your prize, take some time to send the sponsor a message of thanks (you can use Facebook, Twitter, or the contact form on the sponsor’s websites) and encourage the sponsor to run another instant win promotion in the future. We would have no games to list if it weren’t for the sponsors, so take the time to let them know how much you enjoy their instant win games.

Yes, same here. Some prizes I’ve won, I received within a reasonable time, others, I had to write or email them about it. It is fustrating to have to keep asking about a prize that you won, why can’t they just sent the prize out sooner?

hit_me_with_a_prize

This is a great post!! I’ve seen people blast sponsors on Facebook because they haven’t received their prize days after the contest ended whereas the Official Rules clearly stated they would be shipped approximately 8-10 weeks AFTER the contest ends. Then the sponsor responds with that information and ANOTHER person posts the same complaint totally disregarding what the sponsor just wrote. I mean are you kidding me people?!

Another thing I like is where the sponsor just totally dumps the disqualified entries and gives the prizes to people who follow the rules. I think that’s great! You have these “slow” people who cannot comprehend where it states one prize per household and the Pepsi Ultimate Match-Up instant win game a few months ago is a good example. People kept playing and posting wins after they had already won something and then couldn’t figure out why they didn’t receive confirmation emails on the multiple prizes or the prizes themselves. It’s so laughable. They’re lucky Pepsi even gave them one prize in my opinion.

Now I will say that I am not referring to the people who are honestly continuing to play for the sweepstakes entries after they’ve already won the instant win prize. That was directed at people who think they’re all slick trying to take advantage of the instant win games and then whining and crying when they don’t receive their multiple prizes. Kudos to the sweeps admins for keeping a close eye on game play!!

If a problem ever does arise where your prize does not arrive after the time frame in the Official Rules, then yea it’s a good idea to contact the sweep admin, but be cool about it. Emails get lost, shipping delays happen, packages get lost, etc. There’s no reason to go nutso on the people who are trying to fulfill your prize. Especially on a public Facebook wall where everyone else can see it because it’s usually the person complaining who has not read the Official Rules and it makes them look like total ungrateful a**clowns.

I don’t know much about the blog sweeps because I don’t participate in them. Is it the blog owner who fulfills the prizes? If so, I guess it depends on the person who is running the contest when it comes to reliability. I have yet to experience any problems with the regular fulfillment companies. I’m sure they get bombarded with the same complaints as I wrote about in my first paragraph. I don’t know how they do it cos I’d be going off on people all day.

carrie37076

I agree with hit_me_with_a_prize. People complain way too much about free stuff.. And I am a person who has no problem complaining but some of it is ridiculous.

hit_me_with_a_prize

Oh yea I mean I have nothing against complaining, but only when there’s a valid reason. I guess what I saw on Facebook kinda pushed me over the edge because these sponsors don’t HAVE to hold these contests and some people are just out for themselves and couldn’t care less about the sponsor or what they have to offer. They just want what’s free.

I have to say, the people I’ve seen on Snazzywin are great! People helping one another, posting congrats messages, etc. (With the exception of that one dude who was spamming msgs about getting Coca-Cola codes from other users) LOL I’m glad those posts were removed. But even still, we replied with directions on how to access the free plays even though his messages were annoying. =D

I wish there was a way we could PM here cos I would send my FB link to some of the people who are into the regular sweepstakes too. My wall USED to be full of Xbox and Facebook gaming posts, but yea the sweeps posts have definitely taken over.

I agree! I’ve been doing these instant win games for about a week and became addicted extremely quickly. My only issue and complaint was with the H20+ IWG and Sweeps about how every time I entered I got a blank screen then I actually won the instant win game and before I could type in my info I get that same blank screen and error. All in all I get much enjoyment out of these and I love free stuff even if it’s only 1.00 off coupon.

hit_me_with_a_prize

Hi Aranda, you should definitely post when you’re experiencing technical issues with an instant win game. There are a lot of people on here including myself who will help you with that if we can.

I too enjoy all of the games whether it’s a coupon win or a prize win it doesn’t matter to me. The games are just really fun to play and when you get that winning screen it’s like a pure dose of adrenaline!! I also like seeing when people post the big wins too!! It’s so cool how everyone can share in the excitement!!

Now regarding the H20 game, it does seem to use a lot of resources and runs slow for me at times and I’ve played it on my gaming rig. Things that might help include keeping your Adobe Flash Player updated and using a browser that uses less resources. In addition, you don’t want unneeded applications running in the background and keep your anti-malware proggies up to date too. I would definitely contact the sweep admin for that game and let them know the date and time you played and won. Maybe they can pull up the win and allow you to claim it by an alternative method. Best of Luck to you!! (:

Thanks for your response! I love the adrenaline as well! Every day except once I’ve won something. Everything I’ve won has been decent, my most exciting win was the 20$ Olive Garden Gift Card I love seeing what everyone won! I’m hoping for a vacation one of these days, gosh I need one of them! Plus I think it would be fun to travel- something I’ve never gotten to do! Hey, it doesn’t hurt to dream, maybe one day it’ll happen

As far as the H20 game I truly don’t think it has anything to do with my computer, settings or internet. I have no problems with anything else. I’ll double check everything tho. I sent a message to the H20’s actual website, is that what I’m suppose to do? I’m hoping they’ll send me my prize because it was a great win, and I never tried it before, I always love trying new products and if they are good I’ll buy them possibly in the future, so I sure hope so, they may have a new customer if so

hit_me_with_a_prize

Cool, well if you’re PC is running fine then it must have been something on their side. Contacting H20 was a good idea, I just hope they handle it or forward the message to the sweep administrator who is Exposure Marketing & Promotions, Inc. Their complete address is listed in the Official Rules (first paragraph) so maybe if you Google them you can pull up an email or phone number. It wouldn’t hurt just to make sure the win was recorded on their side before the screen went blank.

Oh yea I love traveling too!! Those trip prizes are amazing! I won a Disney trip back in December from an instant win game and ironically, it didn’t happen during game play, I was selected through a drawing after the contest ended so who knows what happened there.. Sometimes people win and cannot take the trip due to work or whatever, or they entered with multiple email accounts and got caught, etc. It could have been anything so that also increases your chances. That’s why we see a lot of “potential winner” announcements meaning they will receive their prize after everything checks out.

I’ve also seen people posting lots of trip wins here, so that’s definitely motivation to keep on entering!! I hope you score something big!

And Congrats on your win! My only worry about traveling is flying, lol! Seeing wins on here is definitely motivating.

Also- Considering I’m 19, and some of the IWG you have to older to play, is it a huge deal if I sign up under my husbands name, with his permission of course?

hit_me_with_a_prize

Thanks it was so much fun!! Since we’re in Florida we didn’t have to fly, but don’t ever worry about that because just take into consideration how many commercial flights take place every single day without incident. It’s actually safer to fly than to drive in my opinion and it’s hella fun!! =)

I don’t want to give the wrong answer to your question because so many contests have so many different rules. Sometimes the rules state the guests have to be of certain age too, so it’s best just to browse that section of the rules to find out. If your husband’s entry was selected, he would have to fill out all of the legal paperwork if necessary.

If I can’t locate the paragraph of the specific rule(s) I am looking for, I open my search feature within my browser and enter keywords. It makes it so much easier to find exactly what I’m looking for because some of the rules can be lengthy.

Man I wish I would have known about sweeping when I was 19!! I didn’t even know these contests existed until I saw a TV show back in 2010. Then I started entering and playing in mid November of last year. You have many many years of exciting wins ahead I’m sure! (:

I’m glad you had fun! And yeah that’s true, I guess it’s the fact that I’m terrified of heights, lol!

I usually do the keyword find as well, it’s very helpful. I always try to look over the rules to at least see the age requirements.

Lol! When I turned 18 I started entering giveaways from blogs, total, I’ve won about $2,000 in things from blog giveaways, but as time went on, the blogs got more popular and their “entry form” had gotten longer and longer (Follow on google, like on facebook, tweet, vote, etc) so I just stopped doing that all together, because it was way too time consuming. I love how the IWG is all in a list, and it usually only takes an hour to an hour in a half to complete all of them compared to an all day thing

Also good news, H2O+ emailed me and they’re sending me my prize, YAY!

hit_me_with_a_prize

Sweet!! Glad to hear they responded and that you’re going to be receiving your prize!! There’s nothing wrong with contacting the sponsor/admin regarding questions about the game and in this case, it worked out great for ya!!

Yea, once you fly for the first time I bet you’ll wanna do it again and again! The fear of heights will probably disappear cos you’re inside the plane and not even really paying attention as to whats going on below. I usually play video games on my phone when I don’t have a window seat and that passes the time pretty quick. Or if I’m seated next to a talker as you can see I can go on and on for hours.

Well, I’m glad everything worked out for you and Good Luck with your sweeps and games!! (: